Animals that have undergone a post-receiving stressful event such as handling, weighing, vaccination, implanting, ultrasonic back fat screening, pregnancy testing, etc., can exhibit reduced feed intake after the stressful event. The loss in feed intake has been observed to typically fall within a rage of 5-15% loss of feed intake on a dry matter basis. This reduced feed intake typically lasts for a period of 2-10 days. However, a significant percentage (30%) of these stressful events produce losses in feed intake that never fully recover.
Losses in feed intake can result in economic losses for cattle owners and feedlots alike. Specifically, a 10% drop in feed intake over a 5-day period can mean a loss of approximately 10 pounds of feed intake on a dry matter basis. When applied across the 25 million cattle produced in the US each year, a drop in 10 pounds of feed intake translates to a loss of approximately 25-50 million pounds of beef and 250 million pounds of feed not consumed for a total economic impact of 35-60 million per stress event (assuming a fat cattle price of $0.80/pound, a ration cost of $0.07/pound and a feed conversion rate of 5-10 pounds of feed per pound of gain). The economic impact is even greater when considering the significant percentage of animals that never recover from a stressful event for which feed intake is depressed for the remainder of their lives. These steers that never fully recover may have decreased average daily gain numbers on the order of 0.4 pounds per day. Thus, for example, over an 80-day period this decrease can result in 32 pounds less gain.
Therefore, a need exists for methods and compositions for maintaining or enhancing feeding characteristics of animals.